Ben Affleck Playing Total Jerkwad in ‘The Great Gatsby’

Baz Luhrmann to bring rich white people's problems to a theater near you... in stunning 3D!

I wonder if I'm the only person who doesn't feel rich or white enough to really 'get' The Great Gatsby, a splendidly written book about wealthy caucasians and their problems back in the 1920's. People love the wrong people, have affairs, end tragically and it's all very brilliant but I could just never relate. Also, is it just me or was Daisy unattractively superficial? That can't just be me…

And yet it's a classic novel, considered one of the 'The Great American Novels' and it's getting another movie adaptation courtesy of Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann. And for some reason it's going to be in 3-D so… we have that to look forward to, I guess. The cast is stellar: Leondardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as the audience stand-in Nick, Carey Mulligan as Daisy… and now it looks like Ben Affleck has hopped on board as Tom Buchanan, the total jerkwad who marries Gatsby's lady love, cheats on her, and whose comeuppance stays remarkably downward. We like Ben Affleck, so when we say that he's perfect for the role, please take it to mean because he's a good actor, not because he'd be playing what he knows. Because dude, that would be messed up. Deadline had the story.

Luhrmann still has to cast the roles of Myrtle (Tom's mistress), George (Myrtle's wife) and Jordan (Nick's love interest), but it looks like everything's going full speed ahead so we expect to hear more news soon.

Crave Online will return with more Great Gatsby news as soon as Andy Kaufman returns our copy of the book back.